Burn Out the Night
by EllieMurasaki
Summary: "Watch out for Sammy." The last year and change of Mary Winchester's life.


"I need you to watch out for me."

"Yeah. I always do."

"No! No, no, no. You have to _watch out_ for me, all right?"

xXx

"Watch out for yourself, Sammy. Big scary world out there."

"I'm eighteen, Dean, I can take care of myself."

xXx

"Lock the doors and windows, close the shades, and most important—"

"Watch out for Sammy. I know."

xXxXx

When Mary realizes she's pregnant, it's early September. A doctor in Topeka assures her the baby's due mid-April, but she knows already that this one will take its time.

May second, 1983. The price of John's life is bearing this child.

Mary stages a fight with John and storms out to spend a few days with her cousin Margaret in California. The list of things John doesn't know expands by two: "there is no cousin Margaret" and "Dean would have been a big brother". A little sister, Mary decides. Deanna's middle name was Charlotte: a Catholic church in San Francisco gets a request to dedicate a Mass to Charlotte Winchester, RIP. When Mary comes back, Dean is full of chatter about having helped Daddy at the garage, picking out the exact right wrench to use on the bolts on the wheels of Mrs. Roberts's Ford, and Mary smiles.

When Mary realizes she's pregnant, it's late November. A doctor in Kansas City tells her the baby's due in early June, but she knows already that this one will make an early appearance. A brother for Dean, she decides; Samuel's middle name was Mark, so she'll ask a church to pray for Mark Winchester.

Mary pays Margaret another visit.

When Mary realizes she's pregnant, it's early January. She spins a Banbury tale about a family history of premonitions to another doctor in Topeka and learns that if this baby arrives in early May, it'll be at twenty-four weeks gestation, which is too early to survive. She nods, once, sharply, and decides there's no need to...upset Margaret further.

Dean is delighted to learn he'll be a big brother.

Intense cramps on the first of May drive Mary into the hospital, and Samuel Winchester is born early on May second. Mary doesn't pick the name. She'd been planning a second child, sometime after her deal came due. Samuel or Samantha, though she'd told John Michael or Michelle, for John's grandfather (whom Mary disliked on sight). John tells her he thought the name was appropriate for the grandson born on the anniversary of Samuel Campbell's death, and because he knows she doesn't want to raise a child named for her father and everyone knows this child has no chance.

Sammy comes home in August. Everyone says it's a miracle.

John leaves in September—a real fight, this time: Mary's been so on edge for so long that it was only a matter of time. The first night he's gone, after she tucks Dean into bed, she cradles Sammy against her breast and toys with the iron knife she kept because wanting a safe sane life didn't strip her of her senses. She could go outside, break the window on the back door as though someone thought that was the only way to get it unlocked. Wipe her prints off this knife and stab herself at an angle that could be from an assailant. Call 911 and say someone just tried to kill her and her son. Describe Dean Van Halen because if he hadn't blown into town ten years ago with a list of victims of the yellow-eyed demon then the demon would have been out of town long before her family knew it was a demon and then her family would _not be in this mess_. Rage against God for giving her a miracle child and taking him away again.

Mary looks down at her son, her beautiful baby angel, and can't do it.

On November first, Mary puts the boys to bed and fucks John like it's their last night on earth and pretends to sleep while she worries about November second. Van Halen warned her. She thinks about staying in bed all day, but Dean comes in at about eight in the morning because Sammy's crying, and she's hyperalert all day—she even lays a salt line around the house, something she hasn't done in a decade—and nothing whatsoever happens.

Mary doesn't realize she's fallen asleep next to John until she hears Sammy crying over the monitor. She checks and John's already got him. The lights are flickering—spectral activity, or demonic sign—and she checks the light in the hallway, then the one on downstairs, and oh God John's downstairs, it's not John who's got Sammy, she doesn't have time to grab salt or iron or anything, just to run upstairs and it's you, it's the demon that destroyed the family she was born into, is destroying the family she made and she's pinned to the ceiling, screaming bleeding dying and can't draw a deep enough breath to warn John when he comes into the room, and fire burning dying Sammy wailing John shoves Sammy at Dean and comes back for Mary and she'll die if he stays he'll die Dean and Sammy what will the demon do with Sammy John you need to live protect Dean protect Sammy protect against Sammy she drags a breath into her lungs just enough to tell him

"Watch out for Sammy—"


End file.
